African Leaders Pursue “Malawi Miracle”

Ben Block
May 28, 2009 2:53 PM

Five years ago, the rains disappeared for a month across much of
Malawi, just as the country's corn crop reached a critical growth
period. As a result, the 2005 harvest was the worst in a decade. Yet
again, millions of farmers were in need of food aid.

President Bingu wa Mutharika decided the next year would be
different. Despite World Bank disapproval and intense government
debate, Malawi's National Assembly distributed 3.4 million coupons to
farmers to subsidize purchases of inorganic fertilizer and improved
seeds. To ensure that the US$58 million program would support small
producers rather than large commercial estates, households were limited
to receiving two 50-kilogram fertilizer bags each.

With the help of heavy rains, the 2005-2006 season resulted in a
twofold increase in corn production. The program was repeated the next
year. By late 2007, Malawi began exporting its surplus corn to
Zimbabwe.

"For four years in a row, a starving country is no longer a starving
country," said Pedro Sanchez, an advisor to the Malawian government who
directs the Tropical Agriculture and the Rural Environment Program at Columbia University's Earth Institute.

A dozen countries throughout Africa may soon replicate the "Malawi Miracle," as the program is now called, Sanchez said during a speech at the American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) annual conference in Arlington, Virginia, last week.

"This is Green Revolution stuff - India, Pakistan in the ‘60s," said
Sanchez, the 2002 recipient of the internationally recognized World Food Prize. "I don't know any other options that are working."

Zambia, Ghana, Senegal, and Kenya have recently announced plans for similar subsidy programs.
Still, such top-down reforms may fail, experts warn, without
improvements in the countries' commodity markets and transportation
infrastructure. Environmentalists are also concerned that the programs
may lead to farmer dependencies on synthetic fertilizer and genetically
modified seeds.

International donors such as the World Bank and U.S. Agency for
International Development originally opposed direct subsidy programs,
arguing instead for long-term solutions that rely on the private
sector.

"Donors want to see their funding going into investments on roads or research, not paying for income or salaries," said Samuel Benin, a research fellow with the Washington, D.C.-based International Food Policy Research Institute.

But since Malawi's agricultural reforms, the World Bank and other
international financial institutions have increased investments in
agriculture, including public spending initiatives.

"The private sector cannot do it all. It cannot reach farmers
everywhere because [private companies] are looking to make a profit,"
Benin said. "Donors have always known that supporting farmers is a good
thing. It's just the channel of how to do it that has been difficult."

Support for direct subsidies in countries such as Malawi and
Mozambique is also driven by concern that fertilizer prices will rise
in the future. During last summer's jump in energy prices, urea, the
world's most common nitrogen fertilizer, doubled in cost. Diammonium
phosphate (DAP), often produced using natural gas, increased by nearly
five times, according to the International Center for Soil Fertility and Agricultural Development (IFDC).

Public spending initiatives have not always found success in Africa.
In Ethiopia, government subsidies for fertilizers and improved seeds
helped increase corn production dramatically in 2001, but the country
lacked the infrastructure to distribute the harvest to remote
communities, leading to a crop surplus and a crash in prices.

"Without investing in complementary services, [the program] actually
did not help by investing in fertilizer and seeds," Benin said. "You
need good agricultural systems to move foods to less-developed areas
and connect with other markets. By not investing in other areas, that
was a failure."

Replicating the "Malawi Miracle" may bring additional problems that
have become associated with agricultural success in both developing and
developed countries. Agricultural subsidies have resulted in greater
crop yields, but farms have often become reliant on fossil fuel-based fertilizers, chemical pesticides, and irrigation in areas often prone to drought, critics say.

Reliance on genetically modified seeds can also threaten the
availability of locally adapted seed varieties for future generations.
About 700 local crops were once cultivated worldwide, enabling
communities to turn to drought-resistant crops during droughts or other
seed varities that can withstand severe weather conditions. Yet 15
crops now supply an estimated 90 percent of the world's food, said
Louise Jackson, a soil scientist at the University of California at Davis and a co-chair of the DIVERSITAS network on agro-biodiversity.

"The reality is that in many places of the world, local people are
no longer reliant on local [crop] varieties," Jackson said at last
week's AIBS conference.

Organizations such as the United Nations and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa
are attempting to increase agricultural yields through systems that do
not rely entirely on synthetic fertilizers and pesticides.

Sanchez said that Malawi is attempting to use nitrogen-fixing trees or other organic methods, but the financing of organic or ecosystem-based agriculture alternatives simply do not exist in much of sub-Saharan Africa.

"We know very well that continuing to use mineral fertilizers
without organic fertilizers is wrong," Sanchez said. "I would hope to
see that in 10 years or so, a lot of fertilizers are organically fixed
through cover crops or other means."

Resource-depletion is a main reason why soils across sub-Saharan
Africa yield an average of 1 ton per hectare, compared to 3 tons per
hectare in Latin America, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East.

Beyond Malawi, a handful of other African countries have also found
recent agricultural success. The goal of 6 percent annual agricultural
growth by 2015, set by the Comprehensive Africa Agriculture Development Programme (CAADP), has been achieved by Ethiopia, Mali, Mozambique, Nigeria, Senegal, and The Gambia in recent years.

Related posts in the Worldchanging archive:

GMO Crops and the Developing World

Conservation Agriculture and Global Warming

Worldchanging Interview: Wangari Maathai

A Truly African Green Revolution

Ben Block is a staff writer with the Worldwatch Institute. He can be reached at bblock@worldwatch.org.

Resuscitating Malawi

Written by Owei Lakemfa

Friday, 29 May 2009

MALAWI had been on the boil and its general elections had the
potentials of either increasing or lowering its temperature.  These
were not to be ordinary elections.  They were elections in which an
angry godfather and immediate past President, Bakili Muluzi, who had
imposed incumbent President Bingu Wa Mutharika, wanted his protégé out
of office.

Mutharika, accused his godfather of corruption and had him dragged 
to court for allegedly siphoning $10 million from donor countries.

Claiming
the charges were political, Muluzi had used his control of the ruling
United Democratic Front (UDF) to checkmate the President on a number of
fronts. Using their majority in parliament, UDF legislators accused the
President of crossing carpeting, and attempted to impeach him.  Hanging
on to power for four years without the backing of parliament, Mutharika
hoped that the the new elections in which parliamentary votes were also
up for grabs, would give him the needed control of the National
Assembly.

The intense power struggles between the President and
his godfather paralyzed the country. Riots broke out and there were
claims of coup plots to oust the government.

There were also
constitutional matters to settle.  Former President Muluzi who had
spent the mandatory two terms in office decided to personally challenge
Mutharika for the presidency.  He insisted that after five years out of
office, he was again eligible to contest. 

In the Nigerian
context, it is like former President Olusegun Obasanjo who after two
terms in office, imposed President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua on the
electorate wanting to run in the 2011 or 2014 presidential election. 
By the time the courts on May 16, 2009  ruled that constitutionally,
Muluzi is barred from contesting, it was too late for the UDF to float
a credible candidate.  So the former President sanctioned the candidate
of a rival party, John Tembo of the Malawi Congress Party (MCP).

This
support was ironic as the UDF was the same “Liberation”  party which
had put an end to the one-party rule of Malawi by the blood-thirsty MCP.

The
MCP had been founded in August 1959 by Malawian nationalist, Orton
Chirwa. When Dr. Hastings Kamuzu Banda was released from prison in
1960,  Chirwa had out of deference, vacated the party’s presidency for
him.  Banda immediately seized the party structures and got himself
elected its life President.  Malawi which was known as Nyasaland became
independent on June 6, 1964 and Banda made the MCP the sole party in
the country which he declared a one party state.

To complete his
dictatorship, Banda handpicked and appointed not just members of his
cabinet but also the National Assembly.  Banda, a medical doctor, then
proceeded to run one of the most archaic, brutal and uncultured
dictatorships in world history.  He empowered local courts to try cases
of witchcraft to which there were no appeals. 

He turned on
Jehovah Witnesses and after brutal attacks, thousands of them fled to
neigbouring Zambia and Mozambique.  Churches also had to be sanctioned
by government before they could operate.

Orton Chirwa who had
founded the ruling party, left, and established the Malawi Freedom
Movement (MAFREMO). He was arrested along with his wife and sentenced
to death.  Only an intensive international campaign saved them from the
hangman. Another opposition party was  the Socialist League Of Malawi
(LESOMA) led by Dr Attati Mpakati.

On March 16,1979, a letter
bomb sent to Mpakati in Mozambique where he was on exile, blew off his
hands. An estatic Banda celebrated this dastardly act right on the
National Assembly floor. Four years later Mpakati was assassinated in
Zimbabwe.

Banda and the MCP also repressed press freedom; the
mass media including the radio was directly controlled by Banda.  Life
jail was the penalty for any journalist found guilty of “false
information”.
Banda as the father of the nation even prescribed
dress code for Malawian women.  Most oversea mails were opened and
telephone conversations monitored.

No criticism of President
Banda was allowed and those guilty were imprisoned or deported. His
huge wealth in a largely poor country could not be discussed.  He was
also a well known collaborator of the apartheid South African regime.

After he was deposed, Banda was put on trial, and on June 14, 1993, Malawians in a referendum voted for multi-party democracy.

The
post-dictatorship general elections of May 17, 1994 were won by the UDF
led by Muluzi.  The party won 82 of the 177 seats and went into
coalition with the Alliance for Democracy (AFORD). Five years later;
the AFORD went into alliance with the MCP against Muluzi who was
re-elected.

In the 2004 elections, John Tembo, perhaps Banda’s
main follower emerged strong winning 27.1 percent of the votes, but was
defeated by UDF’s Mutharika who had 35.9 percent. The latter had to
cobble together a number of opposition parties to form  government.

The
switching of sides by Muluzi to John Tembo is one of the surprises of
history.  Tembo was a man feared under Banda’s rule.  He was accused of
eliminating his rivals in the party, including then Ministers Dick
Matenje and Andrew Gandama.  In a little veiled reference to his past,
Tembo 77, said  this month, that the MCP is the party to vote for
because it had the experience to govern the country, arguing: “I belong
to the past, I belong to the present and I belong to the future”.

However,
the electorate did not share his views; with 93 percent of the votes
counted, Tembo had 1.2 million votes and incumbent President Mutharika
2.7 million.  Tembo cried foul claiming that opposition poll agents had
been denied access to the vote counting centres.  However, his main
backer, Muluzi conceded defeat and congratulated his former protégé.

These
elections have settled a number of issues, including the control of the
National Assembly which is now firmly in the hands of President
Mutharika and his party.

The Malawian elections in which unlike
Nigeria, the votes counted, has demonstrated that once the electorate
is respected, many, if not most political differences can be settled
based on the overall interests of the people.

Send us pictures of the inauguration

whether it is you and your friends witnessing history or pictures of the ceremony itself. We would like to see different angles of the stadium on inauguration day.

Send to antimuluzi@googlemail.com
Thanks

It's official Malawi President wins re-election

Malawi's President Bingu wa Mutharika has won a second term in office, according to the country's electoral commission.

The commission said that he had won 2.7 million votes, with his nearest rival John Tembo winning 1.2 million.

Mr Tembo has alleged that there was election fraud.

The
new president is due to be inaugurated on Friday, and several regional
leaders are already in Malawi to attend the swearing-in ceremony.

Observers hail peaceful election

by NATION  REPORTER
(5/21/2009)

As
Malawians turned up in large numbers to vote in presidential and
parliamentary elections yesterday, leader of the Commonwealth observer
mission and the EU chief observer applauded the country’s citizens for
a peaceful election.
Leader of the Commonwealth observer team John
Kufuor, who is also former Ghanaian president, said in an interview
voting went well in most centres he visited.
“The voting stations I visited were calm. People were voting in a peaceful manner...,” he said.
Kufuor
led a team of African Union mediators to Malawi three months ago to
ease the political tension between former president Bakili Muluzi, the
incumbent president Bingu wa Mutharika and MCP president John Tembo.
Vice-President
of the European Parliament and the EU chief observer Luisa Morgantini
said Malawians should be proud of themselves for the peaceful elections
and an impressive turn out.
“I am getting reports from across the country from EU observers that the situation is the same,” she said.
Mutharika,
standing for a second term, battled it out with six other candidates in
an election described as DPP’s first litmus test.
“I voted because I
wanted Bingu to have the mandate he badly needed to govern the
country,” said an excited voter—Loveness Austin in Lilongwe.
“I voted for someone who will make sure that food is always on the table for my family,” said another voter Martin Msonda.
In
most polling centres in Lilongwe, it was evident the race was between
Mutharika and Tembo, who is backed by Muluzi whose attempt to run was
blocked by the courts over the weekend.
The Electoral Commission closed the polling centres across the country shortly after 6pm.
In
a statement released after polling stopped, the commission’s
chairperson Anastasia Msosa said they had no reported incidence of
violence across the country and admitted that in some areas names of
voters missed on the voters roll.